The College Solutions Blog

Valuable insights from Lynn O’Shaughnessy
a nationally recognized college expert.

College Rankings: The Good and The Bad

Here is a true story: This spring a Denver teenager got into Dartmouth College, which was her dream school. The girl, however, is going to Princeton in the fall. Why? Her mom lobbied her to attend Princeton because it is No. 2 in US News & World Report’s rankings while Dartmouth is No. 9. This might be an extreme example...

The Nation’s 30 Most Expensive Colleges

If you’ve spent much time on my college blog, you already know that published college price tags are meaningless. Most students receive some type of price break, thanks to federal or state grants and/or discounts from the schools themselves. What is far more important than a sticker price is a school’s net price. It’s All About the Net Price A...

Is Graduate School Worth the Money?

Is it worth it to get a graduate degree? A lot of young college grads are asking that question as they face lousy job prospects. Telling people that you work as a barista doesn’t seem nearly as satisfying as mentioning that you are heading off to graduate school. I wrote a post about the grad school decision earlier this month:...

Can You Hide Your Home Equity From a College?

I’ve gotten a couple of questions lately about whether cashing out home equity and putting it into an annuity is a legit way of increasing a family’s chances of getting financial aid. Consequently, I decided to share a post on the topic that I wrote earlier in this year in response to an email from a dad, who was interested...

My Favorite Books on College: A YouTube Review

Interested in some summer reading? I’ve got bookcases packed with college books in my home office. In this YouTube video, however, I share some of my favorite books about college. College Workshop I’ll be giving the final college workshop this Saturday (July 23) in a summer series for parents and teenagers at the University of California, San Diego. If you’d...

Who Will Pay What for College?

The majority of families end up borrowing for college. But when parents and teenagers talk about how they are going to divide up that responsibility, they rarely possess a good idea of what this debt burden is going to mean for them when the bills come due. That’s why I’m recommending a tool from SimpleTuition, an aggregator of private student...

Reading a College Admission Office’s Mind

In my last post I talked about the benefits of visiting colleges before applying — particularly at schools where you can collect brownie points for showing up. If you missed it, here it is: Which Colleges Should I Visit? Today I’m directing you to a couple of resources that can help you pinpoint whether a school really cares if you...

Which Colleges Should I Visit?

Is there a strategy to deciding which colleges to visit? I got that question via email from a mom who attended my college workshop over the weekend at the University of California, San Diego. Clearly it’s much more expensive and involved for families out West to visit schools because you can’t just hop in the car and visit a bunch...

Anatomy of a Stingy College and a Generous One

My last post focused on net price calculators that colleges and universities must have installed on their websites by late October. If you missed it, here it is: A New Way to Add Up the Cost of College Today, I want to share a nifty online tool from COLLEGEdata that can help you get a sense of how much a...

A New Way to Add Up the Cost of College

A New Way to Add Up the Cost of College By the end of October, colleges and universities across the country must install a net price calculator on their websites. As I’ve mentioned previously, these net price calculators are going to be a tremendous boon to families. For the first time, a family will have a reasonable idea of what...